5.10.2017

When the media talks about President Trump and Russia, it often does so in terms of dominoes falling or pressure building incrementally on the administration. With an investigative story here, a firing or a resignation under suspicious circumstances there, it’s easy for people to assume that eventually something will give, the way Richard Nixon finally broke and resigned after the Watergate story gradually developed from 1972 through 1974.

It’s certainly possible that the current investigation will build in that same way. The White House’s ostensible justification for firing FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday is that he mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server. But canning him when he was in the midst of an investigation into the Trump administration’s ties to Russia is an eyebrow-raising move, especially given that the Washington Post reported that the firing came just a few days after Comey asked for more resources for his inquiry. A person can be somewhat skeptical of the progress of the Trump-Russia story so far and still think that this particular development was a big deal.

But it’s also possible that Comey’s firing is just the latest in a series of short, exciting bursts of activity that don’t ultimately produce any lasting momentum or do all that much to undermine Trump. This has mostly been the pattern of these Trump-Russia stories so far.

Comment: If public opinion on Trump sinks, and Senate Republicans abandon him; there could be a special prosecutor to investigate Trump-Russia.